Apple today made iOS 4.0.2 available to the iPhone and iPod Touch. iOS 4.0.2 specifically fixes the browser and PDF-related bug that allowed the iPhone to be more easily hacked and controlled. No other new features were noted by Apple. It is recommended for the iPhone 3G, 3GS, iPhone 4, and iPod Touch 2nd and 3rd generations. Apple has already distributed several beta versions of iOS 4.1 to developers. This is not iOS 4.1. Apple also made iOS 3.2.2 available to the iPad to fix a similar problem.

from Apple

I have upgraded joeychgo.com to WP 3.0, and, as you notice, amd remodeling the site. I plan to refocus the site on forum management and internet marketing, and away from personal matters. Stay tuned…

Forget about PageRank.

I mean it. Take the Google toolbar off your browser and forget about Google Pagerank completely. Pagerank is really nothing more then a manipulation and marketing tool Google uses. It causes people to focus on what Google wants and keeps you focused on Google. Hence, it keeps you from thinking about other search engines.

Instead, focus on things like where a site ranks in the search engines and what kind of traffic it gets. Wanna buy links? Do it. But do it because of traffic, not because of some Google created measure. PageRank is but one of over 100 factors in search engine placement. Why do people worry about it so much?

Advertise on strong sites with good traffic and you’ll be fine. Focus on search engine placement, and Forget about PageRank completely. You’ll be more successful.

The big problem I have is that it drowns out the real email and increases the chance that I’ll miss an important email from a legitimate person. Now this is something I really wish the government would step in and deal with.

I can tell you this, Comcast should just get rid of its customer service department because its doing more harm then good as far as from where I sit. They dont know anything, seem to not be able to do anything and really seem as if they could care less.

Anyway – Sorry I havent been posting much. But im hoping to get back on track here real quick.

This is something I have considered very important for a long time and I believe accounts for my success, and something I am always looking to enhance. This is a top question in my mind for this blog. I am looking to establish an edge here, a point of difference. That is how you win customers, having a point of difference. Im still looking to define that here. Anyone have suggestions?

 Shoemoney just posted a video where he talks about this. Take a look:

Sub Domains To now be Considered The Same As Folders By Google?

Tedster from Webmaster World said:

News flash from Las Vegas PubCon. Matt Cutts informed us that Google will very soon begin treating subdomains and subdirectories the same in this fashion: there will be only 2 total urls from a domain in any set of search results, so no more getting 3, 4 or however many spots via subdomains. We didn’t get any more information than just that basic heads-up.

An interesting question is what will happen to people from BlogSpot? If this happen what will be the blogspot subdomains owners? There are thousands of people who opens blogs with blogspot and their address will be “yourname.blogspot.com” which is under a subdomain. They may now lose their rankings, although, much of their rankings really are not earned. They really leach PR off of blogspot.

But thinking positive, there are many spammers on blogspot to earn some good backlinks gaining an unfair SEO advantage by opening blogspot with no quality posts.

Personally, I like the idea. I dont use subdomains myself because I feel they are generally unecessary. But it does give an SEO advantage. For example – if you look do a Google search for "vBulletin" you see the following:

My site, vBulletin-FAQ, is only outranked by official Google websites and Wikipdia – but vBulletinSetup has 2 listings on page one because of the usage of a subdomain. It’s not 2 different sites, but Google has always treated them as such. I see many examples of this and hope this will level the playing field.

The numbers are flashed briefly, and have to be recalled in numerical order. In each successive trial, the numbers are flashed for a briefer time. In this task, the performance of the humans worsened with each successive trial; the performance of this chimp remains consistent throughout. Watch the video. I know I couldnt beat the chimp. Do you think you could?

 In the video Pam talks about designing with SEO in mind even if your client hasn’t paid you for SEO.

 My personal opinion is that whenever I design a site, I have SEO in mind. If the client wants to hire me for off page SEO that would be seperate, but I do my on page SEO regardless. Watch the video and see what Pam says about website design and SEO.

You can see more of Pam at her new site – http://www.thatpamchick.com/

 – BTW Pam, I dont have a wife

In a recent poll, 58.3 per cent of you thought that when the chips are down, Google’s own brand of ethical leadership will melt under the weight of business real politics.

Not all of you are so cynical though; 16.7 per cent thought the face of business will change as more companies seek to do good, not bad. A quarter of you thought it a silly question, and fair enough too.

Im in the 58% column. I see it already happening with things such as smartpricing and the recent text link selling penalty. Google is only out for Google these Days. You dont hear too much about Google doing more to help the individual webmaster earn more money, only about things Google does to enhance it’s own revenue. Try to place an Adwords ad, and when there are no other ads watch Google, all of a sudden, tell you that your .25 a click bid isnt good enough to have your ad placed. In one breath they tell you to improve your page quality, but, that page quality is just fine if you want to pay .40 a click. I guess page quality has a price too.

God I wish a decent competitor would show up on the landscape. Google desperately needs a competitor, and so do we.

Identified by BitDefender as Trojan.Qhost.WU, the malware modifies the infected computer’s Hosts file, which is a local storage for domain name and IP address mappings and is consulted before domain name servers.

The modified file contains a line redirecting the host ‘page2.googlesyndication.com’. This should point to an IP of a different address. This means the infected machine’s browser read ads from the server at a replacement address rather than at Google.

"This damages both users," says BitDefender virus analyst Attila-Mihaly Balazs, "because the advertisements and the linked sites may contain malicious code – a very likely situation, given that they are promoted using malware in the first place.

"The webmasters are also hit because the malware takes away viewers and possible advertising revenue from their websites."

BitDefender says its software can delete the Trojan.

-also-

US online ad revenues set new high at $5.2 billion

Online advertising is continuing its inexorable march with more than 25 per cent growth recorded in the US over the last 12 months. The report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers , released this week, shows that internet advertising revenues exceeded $5.2 billion for the third quarter of 2007, representing "another historic high" for a quarter, and a $1.1 billion increase over the same period for 2006.

I mainly use Commission Junction for affiliate programs. There are basically 2 types of affiliate programs. One is where a company pays you a commission directly for selling only their product, such as Aaron Wall and his SEO BOOK. Aaron pays you $25 for every book sold through your link. The second is a company such as Commission Junction who handles the affiliate programs for a number of companies and products.

If you look on Commission Junction (after you sign up) you see there are literally hundreds of different affiliate programs available on topics ranging from shoes to travel. Liklihood is there is at least one program that fits your website niche. Basically it works like this. Once your a registered publisher on Commission Junction, you choose an affiliate program(s) that you like. You get the code for the ad banner (or text link) from CJ and place the banner on your website. If you have an automotive forum for example, you might choose affiliate programs for car parts companies. If you have a website that attracts mostly women, maybe an affiliate program for purses and clothing would be more appropriate for you.

But, it doesnt have to end with just placing a banner ad and waiting for the money to come to you. You can be more aggressive about it. One way, and this is especially true if you have a forum, is to send an email to your members suggesting they check out the site (via your affiliate link). This can be a very handy way to push sales. I dont mind this kind of email marketing on my forums because forum users have the option to disallow admin emails f they wish (and I dont violate that wish)

You can also do some adwords advertising to draw people to your affiliate program. First, you make a page on your website that helps sell the product (and contains your affiliate link) and you place your Google Adwords ad to point to that page. You can also have the adwords ad go directly to the affiliate website. (some publishers do not allow this so check) This is an area I plan to do alot of work on in the coming months. There can sometimes be a market imbalance and I want to take advantage of that. By market imbalance I mean you will pay less for clicks on adwords then you earn off the affiliate commissions you earn from those clicks.

OK – thats the first round of basics.  More to come. Tell me, do you use any affiliate programs? Which ones?

Now, John Chow often talks about Forex trading. Im not a trader and know nothing about forex. I never received an email about Forex before. But now, after signing up to John Chow’s rss subscription I keep getting these spammy emails about forex trading. For example:

———- ADVERTISEMENT ———-

Dear Trader,

Last week, I alerted you to the re-release of the step-by-step
Forex Profit Accelerator course that’s totally taken the Forex
trading community by storm.

Well, if you’ve checked the website lately, then you know that
only 67 copies of the course remain and the offer will be closed
for good on Tuesday, December 18th, at 11:59pm eastern time.

See the latest inventory count here:

(Link Deleted by Joeychgo)

Now the only conclusion I can draw is that John Chow is either spamming directly or is selling his mailing lists to others. Either that or its a crazy coincidence. Personally, I think it’s wrong to sell your email lists. I am a forum owner and have probably over 100,000 emails stored from my various forum members. I think of selling email lists from such things to be analogous with email spam.  Has anyone else noticed this?

Maybe i’ll have to start reading John Cow’s blog instead (notice the spelling difference) – after all, that comes up #1 for a search of John Chow. (LOL – Google Sucks)

?

?

I have just installe Yahoo! Shortcuts on this blog and will try it out. What the hell, I get a free T-Shirt out of it, and maybe I help introduce my readers to a new widget.

As you write your blog post, Shortcuts look for Flickr photos, places, companies, products, people and much more.

If Yahoo! shortcuts finds relevant content, it will let you know. Just click the Review this post button to see what Yahoo found for you.

Ok – thats a stock image. I actually found 2 shortcuts for this post.

I’ll have to play with this for a bit and see how I like it.

Its not that we do anything that great at our parties, but we have a real community of people at LVC (lincolnvscadillac.com). We do things like a secret santa and our Christmas party every year. People hang out,  get to know each other, have a few drinks and form personal friendships OFF the forum.

In my opinion, things like this are what makes a forum great. Drawing people deeper into the community. Keeping them involved and helping them make new friendships offline.

I’ll post a few photos tomorrow and you can see.

Dear Joeychgo:

The ebay.com Affiliate Team wants to notify you that we are experiencing an ongoing reporting delay of up to 48 hours, affecting both Transaction Reports and Performance Reports.  The effect of this delay may be seen in Transaction Reports in the lag time between Posting Date and Event Data of daily transactions.  In Performance Reports, the delay may be seen in incomplete data for “Today” and “Yesterday”.

A small subset of our publisher base may also be affected by a separate reporting issue, which results in a delay in the calculation of the final value fee of a number of Winning Bids/BINs.  As a result, you may temporarily notice reduced revenue commission amounts for successful transactions that posted within the first few days of the month, and again at mid-month.  Note that this issue DOES NOT affect ACRU commissions or counts. 

These issues are surfacing as a result of the surge in traffic tied to the holiday shopping season.  While reporting may be distorted during these specified time periods, please rest assured that tracking and recording of transactions remains fully functional, and publishers will be compensated correctly for all commissions at month end.  These reporting issues are expected to continue through the holiday season and possibly into early 2008, but we are working diligently towards a fix.  We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you in the meantime.    

Thank you for your understanding and continued support of the program.

Sincerely,

The ebay.com Affiliate Team
ebayaffiliates@cj.com

This apparantly is not only affecting general eBay affilliates but also AuctionAds affiliates as well. I find it both interesting and troubling that eBay already knows these issues will cause REDUCED revenue. Why is it that they dont make a mistake in OUR favor? Ever notice that?

Ok, well, it is what it is. Those of you who are AuctionAds customers need to know about this as well, because AuctionAds is a super ebay affilliate, and as such passes these problems through to you. Don’t blame auctionAds for this, its out of their control. eBay is the problem here. In the meantime, consider this for your upcoming CJ payments, and your eBay portion might be delayed for a month, at least in part.

Ha — Merry Christmas everyone.

Often I find myself working and working and working. Then I dont want to really stop working to get a full dinner. So, this is something I make that is fast, easy and cheap. Now, im not into the whole Eat Healthy thing. So if you are, dont bother reading much more.

Ok – How about some great chili mac?

It easy to make. Here is how fast and simple. You need:

• 1 box Mac n Cheese. (go ahead, cook it up)
• 1 Can chili (whatever brand you prefer – heat per directions)
• 1 Pkg Chili Flavored Raman Noodles. (cook these up too but remove water after cooking and before spice)

Now – Mix this all together in a big bowl. Serve with Bread and Butter if you wish. 

You can add more stuff if you like, such as jalepenos or even frito corn chips.

Feeds 2-4 people. Costs all of about $4. Takes about 15 mins to make. Quick and easy.

High protein and high carb. Lots of energy in this meal.

This is a short video for Pam, but she talks about some good things. Sometimes you want to put out a video that is informational or educational. These kind of videos aren’t likely to spread around the net all by themselves. Well, Pam tells you a little bit about how to market just such a video.

Built out of kevlar and carbon fiber, this miniature figher jet can reach speeds upwards of 280 M.P.H. The models use small jet turbines, functionally identical to those used in actual full-sized jets to achieve remarkable speeds and flying precision.

I did some looking around and found this video of a model B-52 Bomber. Awesome 8 engine jet model requires two people to fly and control this jet. Each jet engine reportedly cost $1,500 a piece. It’s safe to say, you won’t find this model at Toys R US. God these things are cool.

Forums, blogs, etc all can use this same method for selling banner ads on your site. First thing you want to do is create an advertising page that explains your advertising rates and ad spot positions as well as things such as payment methods.

I prefer to sell ads on an annual basis, but you can sell them any way you like, monthly, weekly, quarterly, etc. I prefer an annual basis because its less work for me, and it gives the advertiser a more attractive price. You dont lose money on giving a more attractive price because if you sell monthly you will have some advertisers who only want a one month ad and they will balance out with the advertisers who pay full price for an annual ad. It all equals out, more or less but ends up with less work for you if you sell annually.

There are 2 basic types of banner ads. Static ads that are present every time the page is viewed and rotating ads that change between a number of advertisers every time the page is viewed. It is good to offer both kinds of ads so you have a range of pricing available for advertisers. Some advertisers sell products that are inexpensive and they must sell a large volume of product to pay for an ad. If you offer them an ad in rotation, they will have a lower cost since you can split the cost of the ad space among several advertisers for the same spot.

Determining price really is a guessing game in some respects. I look at similar sites with similar traffic and a similar topic and try to determine what a good price will be. All of this goes into my advertising information page.

So now you’ve made your advertising information page.  How do you find advertisers? There are 3 simple ways. First, look at similar sites and contact people who advertise on those sites. Contact them via email and link to your advertising information page. Dont forget to include a little about your site and why advertising on your site is a good idea for them. Remember, your selling. Be a salesman. The second way I find advertisers is to check the Google Adwords ads that come up on a Google search for your particular topic. These above 2 ways are good because these companies are already advertising on the web, so you know they are interested in advertising, you just have to sell them on your site. The third way is to ask your forum members for leads. You simply make a post asking your members to tell you the best places to get the products your site is based on. They will often tell you all you want to know. Now you email those companies as well.

Remember, be professional in your correspondence. Dont be spammy. You’ll get better results and you’ll find advertisers stick around much longer if they think they are dealing with a professional.

Let me tell you a little about what Thanksgiving means to mean. I am an American, so naturally there is a historical meaning to me as an American. But there is much more meaning for me to the holiday, and really it can be a holiday to everyone.

In my view, Thanksgiving is a day to be thankful for life, health and good fortune. Its a day for me to be thankful for having the friends and family that I have, and to remember those friends and family I have lost. I lost one of my 2 best friends a few months ago to a motorcycle accident, so my thoughts turned to him today frequently, especially since in prior years he was a fixture at my Thanksgiving dinner table.

I also thought alot about the good fortune I have ad working on the internet the last 5 years. I spent 20 years in the restaurant business prior and really became involved in the internet by accident. It has grown into a business I am very fortunate to have.

I am also thanksful for the family I have. My brother spent the day with me today – My father is out of the country (he is a snowbird)but my thoughts turned to him as well. I thought of my late mother and grandmother also today as they too were once fixtures at my thanksgiving dinner table.

What I wish for is that we as Americans could be better understood in the world. As a people, we dont really like war or feeling threatened, and we dont like having to create war or threatening others. The world of the last few years has been a pretty dangerous place, and my wish is that we could all get past that and learn to live with and respect each other a little bit more.

So I hope you all had a good thanksgiving, and I hope you had the opportunity to spend it with some people you care about and who care about you.

Right now, I am focusing on my several forum based websites and setting income goals for each. I think all of them could be doing better financially and am looking at ways to improve their profitability. One strong thing I am looking at is the sale of direct banner advertising on each site.

Banner ads can be a powerful means of monetizing a website. This is especially true of forum communities because the userbase tends to be there frequently and the advertisers can get alot of notoriety from ads on a busy forum. They can become the "GO TO" guy for whatever they sell just because they advertise regularily on a forum. You can also encourage a vendor to become part of the community and offer expert advice while hawking their products, which is a win win situation.

I generally focus on 2 types of direct vendor advertising. The first is traditional banner ads, where the vendor purchases the banner space like a billboard. The second method I utilize is to create an enhanced usergroup for members who wish to pay an annual fee. (vBulletin makes this very easy) Then, I ask vendors to give a discount to those members in exchange for free advertising. This might not sound like alot, but imagine 100 or 200 members each paying $35 a year – and now multiply that by several forums. That free advertising you give to those members comes back to you in the form of membership fees and members who benefit from the discounts, which can considerably outperform the cost of their membership. (thus they look upon your management of the community more favorably)

I have to admit, I have been remiss in actively pursuing this type of advertising revenue in the last year. SO its one of the areas I have identified as one I could do much better with.

How about you?

Having a Google AdSense site is a great way to make money. And to create an AdSense site, all you have to do is have a Google AdSense account (which is free), a website or a blog (which is free), and some articles (which are free if you write them yourself). Once you get your site up and running, the AdSense ads will be targeted to your content.

Therefore, those looking for your content will come by, read your articles, and have a high probability of being interested in the targeted ads. Every time someone clicks an ad, you get paid! That is, as long as you have designed your site to maximize AdSense clickthroughs!

Let’s look at seven tips for creating AdSense sites that create money.

#1: Keyword Density

Before you place ads on your site, be sure your keyword density is good. You will want to be sure that the right kinds of ads are placed on your site. A free way to determine what the ads will look like on your site is to go to http://www.resultsgenerator.com/adsense/ and type in your keywords. You will then be able to see exactly what ads would show on your site.

If you don’t like what you see, then you know that you need to make changes to your keywords! You can get keyword suggestions from Results Generator from Overture or from the free trial version of Word Tracker.

#2: Focused

Not only will the ads be based on your keywords, but they will also be based on your content. You definitely want your keywords and your content to match as closely as possible.

#3: Write Often

The more information you have the better. Why? Because the more content you have, the more visitors you get. Many people suggest that you write a new article every day since no one wants to come back to your site to find the same old messages!

#4: Choose The Right Format

AdSense allows you to choose many different ad formats. Research has shown that wider ads are more successful. The top three formats are:

" 336×280 large rectangle
" 300×250 medium rectangle
" 160×600 wide skyscraper

Additionally, the 468×15 horizontal ad link under the navigation bar is also a good bet.

#5: Color Counts

You have the option to create a Google AdSense ad in any color of your choice. The best thing to do is to make your ad blend well with your site color scheme. You should make the border color and the background color the same color as your web site. You will want your text color to either be black or the color of your main content.

When creating your Google AdSense ads it is recommended to use the color scheme and style of your website so that the ads blend in well. Ads without background color and borders perfom better than ads within borders with background color.

#6: Position Counts, Too

It is well known that visitors to a website scan the site to determine if it is worth reading. You definitely want them to see and scan your AdSense ads. Therefore, the best place to put them is in the top left part of your page or directly under your headlines.

#7: Increase The Number

AdSense allows you to use up to three AdSense units on a page, two AdSense search boxes, and one unit of ad links. Using all that you can increases the chances of earning money.

Keep these seven tips in mind when creating your AdSense site and you will find that your clickthrough rates increase, thus increasing your money making potential.

About the author:
AdsenseSitesForSale.com makes it easy to generate Google Adsense Income, quickly & easily. Find all the tools and resources you need to get started fast. To receive your free Google Adsense site visit: http://www.adsensesitesforsale.com

Basically, what the blog author suggests is that you find 10 or so different forums related to your site. Then register on each of those forums. Then create a signature on each forum which is worded in a subtle fashion. Then make 5-10 posts on each forum daily. Everyone who reads your psots will be exposed to your signature message.

Now, this does work. You will get some traffic from these signature links. But really it is a form of comment spam and not something I recommend doing.

I tend to think this way. How would I feel if it was MY forum that I was doing this on. Now, if you are really contributing to the forum, and your sig link is secondary to your participation on that forum, then that is fine. But if the only reason your on that forum is to promote your site – your a spammer.

Forum owners are used to getting spammed. I have written articles on How to reduce forum spam, and for the most part these methods work, at least for the nokia phone selling kind of spammer. Dont do it. It’s a short lived method of becoming successful on the net. Your reputation as a spammer will keep you from being offered better opportunities. Keep things white hat and above board. Do things right ad you will eventually be rewarded for hard work.

Bonnie Brown was fresh from a nasty divorce in 1999, living with her sister and uncertain of her future. On a lark, she answered an ad for an in-house masseuse at Google, then a Silicon Valley start-up with 40 employees. She was offered the part-time job, which started out at $450 a week but included a pile of Google stock options that she figured might never be worth a penny.

After five years of kneading engineers’ backs, Ms. Brown retired, cashing in most of her stock options, which were worth millions of dollars. To her delight, the shares she held onto have continued to balloon in value. Not too bad for 8 years huh? (Imagine if she gave happy endings ) I bet her ex husband is loving this.

When Google’s stock topped $700 a share last week before dropping back to $664 on Friday, outside shareholders were not the only ones smiling. According to documents filed on Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Google employees and former employees are holding options they can cash in worth about $2.1 billion. In addition, current employees are sitting on stock and unvested options, or options they cannot immediately cash in, that together have a value of about $4.1 billion.

I should be returning home from Indianapolis tomorrow.

I know alot about alot of things, mostly related to forums. Blogs are new to me in some ways. One big way is how to promote them. in some ways I feel like a newbie, reading articles and forums looking for answers, disecting how other popular bloggers such as Shoemoney and John Chow get their traffic, and drawing on my forum experience.

I have a long way to go. There is alot I need to learn about ways to popularize my blog. Posting frequently is certainly a key component, but so is posting well. I am already making a list of articles I want to write in the hopes that people who read them will also tell others about what they have read. Thats called viral marketing. At the same time I ahve to get people to actually find and read this blog. Partly that will come from Search Engine traffic, but alot will come from me getting the word out that im writing a blog and that I have some interesting things here. I ask anyone reading this post to help me in that endeavor.

One thing caught my eye on Digital Point today. Someone posted about an article they had written regarding how to get more comments on a blog. One of the replies was:

Nice tips. I prefer getting comments since this beats coming up with new topics yourself.

Let me tell you something. If your main reason for getting comments is so you dont have to post more original content, get rid of your blog. Writing on your blog shouldn’t be a chore. If your too lazy to write original content, then just feed in some rss feeds and forget about the blog world. You might as well because if you dont enjoy posting on your blog then your just spinning your wheels. I like people’s comments because it gives me an idea of how my posting is being received. I also have the TOP COMMENTATORS plugin so you get a free link if your one of the top commentators on my blog. I do this to encourage comments.

Now, the hardest thing I have had to do was keep coming up with new and relevant content. Trouble being only that my instinct is to post about stuff in my personal life. I have had to really work to keep myself from doing that. The second question I have to ask myself is how to discuss forum related topics here. I also own a forum, vBulletin FAQ, which is one of the top vBulletin help sites around. My concern is how do I post here and not neglect that site as well. I havent worked that one out yet. but I will in time.

DAMN.

In a little over a year, the blog’s monthly income has grown by over 6,600 percent. Here is the income breakdown.

• Private Ad Sales: $11,888.79
• Affiliate Commissions: $5,131.27
• ReviewMe: $3,000
• Text Link Ads: $2,296.74
• Kontera: $1,000
• TTZ Media: $80.58
• Subscription: $40.00
• ShoppingAds: $11.21
• Grand Total: $23,448.59

How? Makes you wonder doesnt it?

Two answers. Traffic and a very high eCPM

Blog traffic held steady at 330,339 page views from 180,291 visitors. If you take the blog’s page view and divide that by the income it will give you a site wide eCPM of $70.98. Blog expense for the month include $526.85 for Google Adwords advertising and $25 for a private ad.

Now a big part of that eCPM is the private ad sales, which are about half. But in the end the answer comes from one thing. TRAFFIC. Lots of traffic. 6,000 visitors a day each viewing about 11 pages per day. So – The question im asking myself is – how do I get to that level of traffic? This is something I am thinking about alot at this time of year as I am developing my goals and planning for 2008. Naturally, suggestions are welcome and appreciated.

Just a little more about Google Pagerank – not only have the SERPS for my sites not been affected, but all but two advertisers renewed their ads for November. So, nothing has been affected so far for me except toolbar Pagerank. At this point, I am going to continue doing things as I have been, which is following the basic Google rule – design pages for readers, not for search engines. I’m not putting nofollow tags on everything just because of Google’s PR, at least not at this point. I am in a wait and see pattern right now because I am convinced Google will have to change how this filter / penalty works.

Now, I have something else for everyone. Many website owners, especially forum administrators, would like personalized clothing to sell to their members. I found a company that can do hats, polo shirts, jackets and other items for a reasonable price and doesnt require a minimum number of pieces for an order. You can order just 1 jacket if you like. I have had a few jackets made up for a few of my sites and you can see photos of the Jackets in the Joeychgo Photo Gallery – For more information on how to get stuff for your website call Jim at Champs Clothing – 708-277-5067, Let him know Joeychgo sent you.

Shoemoney won the Battle of the Bloggers with 7,170 new RSS readers for his blog. I found it interesting to see how both he and John Chow handled the end of the contest. John Chow, on his announcement that he lost had this to say:

Did Shoemoney Cheat?

I’ve been bombarded with tons of IM pages asking if Shoemoney cheated or game FeedBurner. He managed to gain more readers in one day than he did the entire month. I will leave it up to you to decide if there was any underhandedness going on. I will only say that Shoe is a lot more evil than I gave him credit for.

Shoemoney in the meantime, had a much more humble approach. In his post he said:

So who won? IMHO we both win. It was great publicity for both of us and we both gained thousands of RSS subscribers. Officially I won the contest, but I think the REAL winner will be revealed over the course of the next few months when all the people who only subscribing for the contest entries.

I think you can tell a little something about a person based on how he handles a win or a loss. Congrats Jeremy.

So, how about a little bit more about pagerank.

Everyone seems to be running around trying to figure out what to do about the major pagerank decreases many sites have seen.

There is an interesting post on BlogStorm

If you lost PR this week ask yourself these questions:

• How many links did you have from blogrolls?
• How many directories linked to you?
• How many links did you have from sites that sold links?
• How many links did you have from sites that got links from sites that sold links?
• How many links did you have from sites that got their links from sites that got links from directories?

People are looking at their site for the answers but if you understand how PR is calculated its clear that the issue probably extends far deeper than your site and even the sites that directly link to you.

If the sites right at the bottom of the chain such as directories and low quality blogs all start to lose PR it affects every single site on the web

This is right on the money in my opinion. Whenever Google Pagerank is changed, it affects ALL websites. The reason for this is that PR doesnt exist in a vaccum. All sites affect all other sites. Even sites you havent even heard of affect your site. They link to someone, who links to someone, who links to someone who links to you. If that first website’s PR drops, all the others do as well. This drop might be unnoticable to you in and of itself, but when a large number of sites are affected, the process snowballs and affects everyone.

This is a big part of why you see tremendous drops in PR. Some sites that were a PR 7 for years, went from a PR7 to a PR3.

I suspect the results were not what Google really intended. I say this because if this was Google’s attempt to stop link sales, why wouldnt they publicize it more? Why wouldnt Google say – "Hey –  if you want your pagerank back, remove all paid links and submit a renclusion request." Why is Google not telling us what to do?   Simple – because it isnt over yet. They are still making changes to the PR algo.

Truth is – I believe at this point ONLY toolbar pagerank was affected. The real PR of websites, was not. This is why there are no significant ranking changes.

But, as I said in my previous post. Who cares. Google made yet another mess. Big Deal. My only wish is that another search engine would step in and give Google some real competition. Right now, Google operates without real competition, which is bad for the internet.

I read about it on almost every blog and forum I go to. Some people are near panic, seeing their pagerank drop dramatically, then drop yet again, and yet again. My thoughts on this are simple.

Google is broken. What else is new.

Google breaks it’s own rule on this one. According to the Google Webmaster Quality Guidelines we should "Make pages for users, not for search engines." – Yet we are told though Matt Cutts that we should use rel=nofollow tags if we are selling links. Guess what Google. Kiss my ass.

Yeah, thats right. I said it.  Kiss my ass Google.

Why do I make such a blunt statement? Simple. Many very important, relevant and prominant sites lost alot of pagerank on this update, or penalty or whatever it is. But search rankings held. Do you really think these sites are going to freely give up the income that paid links provides? Nope. Some sites charge hundreds of dollars a month for a link. And dont kid yourself. People buy links for reasons besides PR transfer. People buy links for traffic as well. I buy links from time to time and its mainly for the traffic the link might provide. And if Google next decides to penalize search result rankings, guess what? They will wreck their index and be forced to start showing less relevant and less popular sites as top in the SERPS. Hell, forbes.com and washingtonpost.com even took big hits to their PR. Wanna drop them from your search index too Google?

 Barry Schwartz of SEO Roundtable says it best:

I trust my sponsors, I value their sponsorships and I couldn’t do what I do without their financial support. Some sponsors can’t afford huge sponsorships, so they sponsor in their ways. It is what enables this site and many other sites to function and operate on a daily basis. I turn down sponsors all the time because they are simply not relevant or useful to my reader. I hand select them and for them to be on my site, means I trust them. Why nofollow someone you trust and want to thank? Is that a slap in their face? Will I have to and will they continue to sponsor? Time will tell.

In my opinion, this is a great opportunity for Yahoo to jump into the fray. Google may be all powerful, but it isnt the whole internet. I sometimes think Google forgets the strength of the webmasters in all this and the strength of it’s pagerank feature from a  marketing standpoint. While we all sweat PR updates, we are all talking about Google. Its free marketing. And there is only one reason to give a rats ass about pagerank… It is an indication of your website’s value for link sales. Thats it. Pagerank has no or a minimal affect on a website’s ranking in the search engine. To me its little more then a gold star on my spelling paper. Who cares.

Aaron Wall , the Author of SEO Book, said:

Since Google is demoting PageRank’s viability as a site’s global authority score perhaps this is a time for Yahoo to bring back WebRank, or Ask to launch something like CommunityRank. The Google-webmaster relationship is fraying. This presents an opportunity for whoever wants to take it.

Many webmasters I have talked to are pissed. I say to hell with PR. I hope Yahoo gets smart and comes out with something similar right now. I bet they can snatch the spotlight from Google. Personally, I think Google needs to be taken down a few notches. Evernotice how everything Google does is intended to penalize the very same people who provide it with a substantial portion of its profitability? Go ahead Google, start penalizing rankings next and watch your adsense revenue drop. Lets call it — SmartPricing, in reverse.

Two Mexicans are standing on opposite sides of the road, each holding signs.  One keeps having cars stop and gets money, the other isn’t getting a single person to stop.  Finally the one with poor luck says, hey, what are you doing to get all those cars to stop.  My sign says how I am homeless and have no food.  The other Mexican says, you are doing it all wrong, read my sign:

"I just need $10 more to get back to Mexico"

There is a great marketing moral to this joke. To sell successfully, you have to put your sales pitch in a way that makes what the buyer wants.

We all sell. Maybe your selling your forum to new members, or selling a product on your website. Or selling your point of view in a political debate at the coffee shop. Whatever the case, your selling. To successfully sell, you need to put yourself in the other guy’s shoes and figure out what he needs or wants so you can tell him how your product or service fits that need or want.

Something I have had to explain to many people, is that just because you think your site looks good, doesnt mean others will. A perfect example is loud obnoxious colors in your website design. Bold greens, hot pink, etc. It might look cool, but its annoying to most people. They wont ever see what your site is really about. You have to sell your site to them. Give them what they want as best you can and show them how they get what they want from your site, and you’ll be successful.

Last week,  Shoemoney was at the TechCrunch40 Conference so John Chow filled in and discussed Adsense, WordPress, and 60 Dollar Hamburgers. It was a pretty good show. This week, John is filling in again because Shoemoney wanted a little vacation. John’s calling this week’s show: Super Affiliates

I think John Chow should get his own show.

Then I started seeing other bloggers including Andy Beal post about blogrush  Video: Is BlogRush Legit or a Scam?. He basically has a few posts saying he is planning to remove BlogRush because he’s not getting any real traffic from it. Same from Johntp.com: How Is BlogRush Doing For You? Many people are complaining that Spammers and cheaters have started to inviltrated the program already. BlogRush has been trying to offset this by altering their program, manually approving blogs and adding more security measures.

Something else that concerned me was a post on DigitalPoint, BlogRush: The Official Word From Adsense where a user reports that Google Adsense sent him an email stating: "We don’t encourage or endorse the use of a program like this Thus, we’re unable to give specific advice regarding BlogRush.

SO, Im going to watch for awhile and see how this goes before I jump in.

This is a new area of concentration for me. Music. It should be interesting. I recently bought a network of music sites. I have alot of work to do on these. They all run nicely, but I think they could have some better design and of course, I need to add a forum to the network. I would also like to develop some sites which are about music other then Jazz.

The 26 Website network I now own is: I Love Smooth Jazz – The most complete Smooth Jazz Directory on Earth! Local Jazz Radio Websites

• Atlanta Jazz

• Baltimore Jazz

• Boston Jazz

• Charlotte, NC Jazz

• Chicago Jazz

• Dallas Jazz

• Dayton Jazz

• Denver Jazz

• Detroit Jazz

• Kansas City Jazz

• Miami Jazz

• New York Jazz

• Oklahoma City Jazz

• Orlando Jazz

• Philadelphia Jazz

• Phoenix Jazz

• Raleigh, NC Jazz

• Sacramento Jazz

• San Francisco Jazz

• Seattle Jazz

• Los Angeles Jazz

• Tampa Jazz

• Washington, DC Jazz

Main Network Page:

Smooth Lee Jazz Music He doesnt look like me too much huh? Well, thats something to work on as well. Ive also updated the blog a bit. I added several pages (listed on the top right of the page) which explains what sites I own and what each is about. I hope everyone has a great and safe Labor Day!

The first storm was so powerful, and so damaging, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich designated DuPage County a state disaster area. I have heard conflicting reports as to what the strom was. These reports range from a storm with a bunch of microbursts to a low grade tornado. Nobody seems to be able to get the story straight. Doesnt really matter, the damage is done. Hell, even the O’Hare tower was cleared for the safety of the controllers. SO you know it was bad.

I lost power for 4 days. I also took about 6 inches of water in my basement due to the power failure killing the sump pumps and the battery backup not working like it should have. I lost parts of the big tree in my backyard, and my landscaper, Nick Renello (630-532-9301), was on top of it the next morning, removing all of the debris from the yard. By the way, Nick came up with the inexpensive solution to my back yard flooding problems I mentioned last year (See This post).

“It looks like a war zone” said one of my closest friends and neighbors when he arrived. Trees were uprooted and broken, very few streets could be negotiated in my neighborhood since they were blocked by fallen trees. The last estimate was about 1500 trees down in our town.

I have to give credit though. The village was on top of things. Our trustees were out talking with residents. I spent several hours with Trustee Dave Hegland at the Funky Java coffee shop on Friday, which had both power and internet access, thus giving me a lifeline to my websites. Dave was full of alot of information and made me feel a little more in tune with what was happening. Our Public works deparment worked through the night on Thursday clearing streets so you could get from place to place, our Police department was out almost immediately helping with traffic, and our Fire department spent several days helping homeowners do many things you wouldnt think of, such as refilling oxygen bottles for VP residents that were without power.  I commend all of them. As I told Bob Neimann, our Village Manager, I couldnt say I was satisfied with the Village’s performance, instead, I had to say that I was quite impressed.

ComEd did a great job as well, suprisingly. They called in many many crews from other states and had our power restored much faster then I could have hoped. Even Comcast had Cable back up pretty quick.

I saw many of our residents out helping others. Extension cords could be seen running across streets to share power from generators, and I saw alot of neighbors were helping other neighbors with tree removal. I love it. This is what a neighborhood is suppose to be.

Here are a few photos I took the night of the storm. (click the image to see it full size)

         

 While shopping, I couldnt help myself when I saw something which, as Michelle’s son Alex characterized it, would help Michelle do her “Womens Work” more efficiently. So, well, see the photos and look closely at the gift… 

 

It will be quite an upgrade, increasing our capacity and performance 4 fold.

For those of you techies who are interested, here are the stats…

Pre-installed QUAD-core Processors:
dual 1.86Ghz Intel Xeon Clovertown quad-core
Model 5320, socket 771, 1066mhz FSB, 2x 4M L2/CPU

Pre-installed Motherboard:
Supermicro X7DVL-I Dual Socket 771Intel 5000V (Blackford VS) Server Chipset
IPMI 2.0 Slim Slot (IPMI card optional)

Pre-installed 1U Optimized CPU Cooling:
2x Intel factory socket 771 copper passive heatsink
2x 10cm 4200rpm Chassis/CPU Blower Fans

Pre-installed FB-DIMM RAM:
major brand 4096-Meg (4G) 128-bit Dual-Channel
DDRII-667 ECC Fully-Buffered DIMMs
2x 2G, 4x open DIMM slots, 24-Gig Max

included Storage Devices:
2pcs Western Digital 150G Raptor, 10000rpm
WD7400ADFD, 24×7 Enterprise Class, 16-Meg Buffer

Pre-installed Hardware RAID Controller:
3Ware Escalade 8006-2LP RAID Controller
2x 250G SATA hardware RAID-1, 250G Capacity

Included Removable Media Device:
24x slim CD-ROM, no Floppy Drive

Embedded Dual Gigabit NICs:
on-board Dual Intel 82563EB Gigabit NICs

Embedded Video:
on-board ATI ES1000 Video, 16M Video RAM

Chassis/Drive Bays/Cooling/Power Supply:
SuperMicro SC811T-4201U Rackmount Chassis
2x hot-swap HDD carriers & 1×2 SATA backplane
1x slim CD bay, 1x open FDD bay
2x 4200rpm 10cm System Blower Fans
SuperMicro 420watt 1U Power Supply

Included Rack Mount Accessories:
Supermicro CSE-PT08 Rail Kit Included
2x Sliding Rails / 6x Brackets / Screws

 

Compared to the server I am on now, this one is a screamer and should last me quite awhile. I get my servers from APAQ DIGITAL SYSTEMS Their prices are fantastic and his service is fast. I would recommend them if your buying a dedicated server, especially if you have special needs since he can and does customize his servers to your needs.

Coca-Cola does announced it does not have plans to change the labeling on its Dasani brand bottled water, despite the fact the Dasani brand bottled water also comes from a public water supply.

According to a 1999 report by National Resource Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group based in Washington, “about one-fourth of bottled water is bottled tap water [and by some accounts, as much as 40 percent is derived from tap water] – sometimes with additional treatment, sometimes not.”

Bottled water is not safer
The bottled water industry has created a misconception in the United States that bottled water is cleaner, safer, and healthier than tap water. In fact, both regulation and enforcement of bottled water safety is weaker than of tap water safety. Federal, state, and local environmental agencies require rigorous testing of tap water safety. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration regulates bottled water if the water is sold over state lines, meaning up to 70 percent of all bottled water produced and sold within states is exempt from FDA regulation. Most food processing plants are not even inspected once a year and any safety testing of bottled water is performed by the companies themselves. A landmark study by the Natural Resources Defense Council found approximately one-third of tested bottled water brands violated, in at least one sample, an enforceable standard or exceeded microbiological-purity guidelines. The most common contaminants were arsenic and synthetic organic carcinogens.

Bottled water can costs $7.50 to $11.00 per gallon in the supermarket 8 but tap water costs most customers only one-tenth of one cent per gallon.

Personally, I think there needs to be some kind of investigation of the bottled water industry. American’s spent $10 billion on bottled water in 2005 and paid up to 1,000 times the cost of production, a major windfall of profit for the companies. As I see it, this windfall is primarly due to companies such as Pepsi and Coca Cola using deceptive marketing and misleading the American public to create billions in sales and profits.

 

 

According to court documents, computer chip magnate Henry T. Nicholas III ordered an extensive underground bunker built under his house in Laguna Hills, specifically to be used for hookers and drugs. The documents allege that the dot com billionaire would fly in prostitutes from Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and New Orleans. New Orleans? Did the other three cities not cover it?

Now, ignore the fact that he’s married, this is illegal and it’s whores, and you have a pretty fun story. Who doesn’t want to build a $30 million bunker where there are no rules?If it was me, I wouldn’t waste my time with the drugs, apparently cocaine and ecstasy in this case. I’d want to concentrate on the other activities mentioned. I didn’t build a multi-million dollar sex cave to spend all my time stoned down there. Besides flying in hookers from Chicago can get pricey, I’d want to enjoy the moment.

Here’s another part I love — he got busted for building without a permit because he tried to rush most of the job in a a week. Why? Because he took his wife for a vacation to Hawaii for a week and wanted it to be done before they got back. This guy is both a genius and an idiot. If you’re going to bother with all this, just get a divorce dude.

Plus, if you’re a billionaire and can’t get laid on your own, maybe you’re not as smart as advertised.

Dumb move #2: Get into a contract dispute with the guy who built the underground sex cave for you. You didn’t think he might hold this over your head? On the other hand, if you’re loaded on coke and hookers 24-7, all of this might escape your attention.

Now, since there is a court dispute here, it’s impossible to know how true these allegations are. But there is a cave under his house. His wife did divorce him. And there are two different people suing him with the same story. It could be that they coordinated with each other or copied one another to make it more believable. Or it could be that they said the cave is for sex and hookers because it is, and that’s why his wife divorced him (after catching him in the cave with a hooker apparently).

Now, if I was Nicholas, I’d just own it. He’s single now anyway. Just fess up to it and say that’s how you roll. I’d say, “Yeah, that’s how I do. What are you going to about it?”

What business is it of anyone else? He’s not a politician, he’s not a hypocrite. He’s just living large. Come on man, don’t let that cave go to waste. Don’t just do it for yourself, do it for all of us who’ve ever dreamed of our own underground sex bunker. Live the dream, man.

Here is the Video about the story

 I dont say that because I travel alot, or really care much. It was a minor inconvienance. But air travel security has become a joke.

It started years ago when they used to ask: Did you pack your luggage yourself?  Yup, top notch security there. Then they started disallowing lighers, but matches were ok. Security officers have been collecting some 22,000 lighters a day nationwide. 22,000 a DAY?  Geeze!

Kip Hawley, assistant secretary for the Transportation Security Administration, said in an interview on Thursday that the ban had done little to improve aviation security because small batteries could be used to set off a bomb. “Taking lighters away is security theater,” Mr. Hawley said. “It trivializes the security process.”

YES!!!  Someone with some common sense at the TSA?  How the hell did that happen? — Wait, I spoke too soon. As I understand it, more then 3oz of breast milk is still prohbited. So much for common sense, but its a start.

 How about this…  NO Carry on luggage that doesnt fit in your lap or under your seat. Remove the overhead bins. How much would THAT speed up travel? I cant count the number of times I’ve been stuck in the rear of the airplane and had to wait 20-30 mins for the people in front of me to figure out how to get off an airplane efficiently so I could get off. Silly me, I was ready when the plane stopped moving.

 

 

 A nice party was trown for me on my birthday, and some of my closest friends were there. We partied late into the night and had a great time. As you can see I really dressed up for the party.

But I wasnt the only one who was well dressed. My buddy Dave was also:

 The food was great – we had about 25-30 people all together and somehow managed to not have the cops called on us despite partying into the late hours of the morning.

All in all – 40 is good. I dont feel young and dumb, and I dont feel old and tired. What else can one ask for?

 

 

 

 

 

 

This photo doesnt really give you much of an idea about where in the house it is – but its upstairs at the top of the stairs. To theright is the hallway which leads to 2 bedrooms and a bath. I suspect this was some kind of kitchen area at one time since there is a small nook where a small stove might fit and a 220 outlet as well as a exhaust fan above. The closet is about 7″ by 6′ plus 2 nooks where I can place shelving.

I’ve decided to turn this area into a walk in closet. Below are photos of my progress so far.

   

You can see I also decided to line the walls with aromatic cedar. I still have to line one wall. The cedar kits are available from Home Depot and cost about $1 a square foot. They are pretty easy to install IF you have a nail gun like I do. Each 4′ plank needs 6-8 nails. My air powered brad nailer made this an easy job. I couldnt imagine pounding all those nals by hand. But it could clearly be done. You can also use adhesive, but I prefer nails.

Still to do is the taping and mudding of the drywall, trim and I am going to install a 6 panel oak door and of course shelving for storage. Also, I am contemplating what kind of flooring to use. I am planning on recarpeting the whole upstairs in the near future, but I am also thinking hardwood might be better for the closet floor. (real hardwood, not that cheap laminate crap)

I have a few things to do still to finish the ground floor bathroom. Little things that seem to escape my attention. But I hope to get those accomplished soon and post the finished pics of the bathroom. Upstairs I have another bathroom I want to do and then its onto the basement and laundry room. I might start the basement first, only because its cool downstairs and easier to do in the summer heat.

One more photo. We have really been enjoying the deck I built last fall. My only regret is that I didnt make it bigger. But maybe I’ll add onto it in the future. I would love a hot tub out there. Here Michelle and Kerry are hanging out on the deck one night not too long ago. We love that little fireplace. It really creates a nice atmospere. Of course, Michelle became a ham as soon as the camera came out.

 

Oh, I almost forgot. I dont have photos yet, but we SEEM to have solved the backyard flooding problems. I dumped 2 truckloads of dirt in the back yard and regraded the yard. We haven’t had so much as a puddle in the yard since. Right now, we’ve planted seed because I am too cheap to buy sod. But the seed is growing (along with weeds). By next year, the back lawn will be nice. We also started landscaping around the deck, adding mulch. We plan to add some Hostas and shrubs. I’m thinking Hydranga and Arbrovite, for you gardeners out there.

 

 

 

That question may be answered before too long..

 Rumors are starting to circulate that the Star Wars camp is in Santa Monica interviewing writers for their upcoming live action Star Wars TV movies. Some of the writers already under consideration have written for “Lost” and “Heroes.” The show will cover the 19-year span between “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith” and “Star Wars: A New Hope.” The new show will focus on minor characters in the Star Wars universe, so don’t expect them to dwell on Luke Skywalker’s childhood antics too much.

 Need I go on?      Thanks for understanding everyone.

 Immigration is one of the bigger issues of the day. I see one major flaw in just about every proposal on how to deal with it. There is little or no penalty for the illegal. They get caught, and sent back to wherever they came from. No real penalty. How can we expect to deter the flow of illegal immigrants if they have nothing to lose by coming here illegally? How can we expect them to go through the red tape of legal immagration if it is literally easier and without consequence to come here illegally?

Over the years we have had several ‘amnesties’ for those here illegally. We are always of the mindset that we will do better on border security in the future, but we never address any real consequences for those who actually break the law and cross the border. This doesnt seem fair to those who do go through the process of obtaining legitimate immigration status.

We also have the issue of the wall on the border of Mexico. Some say it wont do much good. Facts seem to say otherwise. The City of San Diego put up such a wall between themselves and Mexico. Since construction of the San Diego Border Fence began in 1996, the smuggling of people and narcotics has dropped drastically and crime rates have been reduced by 50% according to FBI statistics.

So what I would suggest, is that we create some penalties for those caught here illegally. How about a year at labor, such labor to be building and maintaining the wall we’re building. Second offence, 2 years. This would be in addition to some kind of guest worker program, and near amnesty for those already here. Guest workers should be charged tax on a paycheck per paycheck basis. In addition, allow those already here illegally to apply for legal status. If they apply in the US, they must pay a fine. or they can return to Mexico and apply from there with no fine. If caught, well, they help build the wall.

 I dont understand what all the wrangling is about with our politicians. Seems pretty simple to me.

 

This is a pretty significant honor. Any of the more than 100,000 active vBulletin forums could have won this award. I am grateful for the award, but am careful to point out that this was not due to my effort alone. Many people have assisted with the website over the past year and they deserve as much if not more credit then I do for making this forum such a success.

Specifically, I would like to thank John and Peggy, my co-administrators for all their help. Believe me, this site wouldnt be anywhere near as successful if it wasnt for them. John owns a very successful Brass Band Music forum called TheMouthPiece.com and Peggy owns themesbydesign.net, a site dedicated to providing graphics and forum styles for vBulletin owners. These 2 people in particular have given tremendously to vBFAQ and to the vBulletin community as a whole.

A few facts about vBulletin FAQ.

• vBfaq was Started in January 2006
• We have 8400+ members as of today
• 40% of our visitors come from the USA
• 10% come from the UK
• 5% come from Canada, Australia and India

 

Spike came to us as a puppy. From the first moment, he was fiesty and as such we gave him the name Spike. Spike was a great friend and family member to us. Spike was the first dog that I owned from puppy to his death. When we got him, he could fit in the palm of your hand. He was always at my feet when I ate, looking up wantingly with those big brown eyes.

Spike fathered many puppies over the years with his mate, ‘Baby’, who passed a little over a year ago. Strangely, I have no digital photos of him except the one above which shows Michelle holding him and Baby.

Spike has had health problems of late. Yesterday morning, Spike laid down on the kitchen floor to take a nap, never to awaken.

You will be missed spike. You were loved and a great companion.

 Good news is, I am almost done! The plumbing is done, electrical is done, tile is installed, vanity installed. Now, its mostly small things and details.

I added extra electrical because, I could. We hactually have 3 GFCI outlets in the bathroom now which should be able to serve our future needs, whatever they maybe.

 

Here are a few pics. Next time I post about the bathroom will be when I have it all done. We are actually a little further along then the photos show. Everything is now grouted and the door and trim is installed, but the photos dont show that. The tiling was alot easier then I thought it would be, mostly because we didnt have to make alot of cuts. I have a few spots that we goofed the tile a little, but I bet nobody ever notices those spots.